Decent enough, but often confusing. There was too much time focusing on the intricacies of the lore, worldbuilding, and factions, and not enough on the actual plot or characters. I think 15 and Ruby were well-portrayed here, and the descriptions were absolutely sumptuous, but the side characters were lacking and the overall plot resolution was a bit deus ex machina. It all ended up tripping over itself, unfortunately.

Unfortunately this one just did not grab me at all. I think it throws way too many things at the wall, and immediately you are confronted with learning about a very alien society and have  cavalcade of different characters you need to keep track of. Without that initial buy in, I was struggling to stay focused reading and really care about what was going on. The alien world was cool when I could understand it, but this one wasn't for me. (The villain also came sort of out of nowhere and was handled with far too easily)

The Fifteenth Doctor #12

'Eden Rebellion' (2024) from BBC New Series Adventures.

There's undeniably some very interesting worldbuilding woven into this story - and I highly respect its exploration of indigenous cultures in a high science-fiction fantasy setting - however, the story itself feels a little drowned out and muddled in this overly convoluted world it's trying to be set within, and the set of side characters and their motives and relationships, despite seemingly being very present, just feel a touch vapid and uninteresting to me. It's a tricky one to really describe my feelings on outside of "it just didn't do it for me", so I suppose I'll have to leave it with that. Definitely some cool stuff in here though, it just doesn't all come together in the end personally.

📝3/10

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

MY SCATTERED AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT NOTES:

Fifteen and Ruby are well-written, and it’s easy to imagine Ncuti and Millie saying the words written for them. Out of the first three novels for Fifteen, this one characterises the two of them the best.

One great thing about Doctor Who books is that they have no budget for visual effects, so they can take place on very vivid alien worlds. Eden Rebellion certainly gives us a very lush and colourful alien planet of Yewa, and the novel spends a lot of time fleshing out the setting and the characters.

My main problem with this novel is that it seems a bit too preoccupied with building out a detailed world, and as such, the supporting characters get lost in it. The plot feels busy, yet very little actually happens; there's a lot of heavy backstory, but I don't get a feel for the main conflict or even the main themes of the text.

By the end of the book, I was so bored by it that I resorted to skimming through the last quarter of it.

A vivid alien world and well-written main characters aren't enough to make this book work for me, and I don't feel comfortable giving it a higher rating.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

Fifteen refers to having played poker with Charles Dickens and not getting along with his ravens, so he's met him more than once, because he didn't do that in his ninth body!